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WILLIAM PENN 

AN ADDRESS 

DELIVEKED BEFORE 

THE PEN N CLUB 

OF 

PHILADELPHIA 
October 27, 1877 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF TUE 

LANDI^G AT UPLAND 

BY 

WAYNE MAC VEAGH 



PHILADELPHIA 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 705 JAYNE STREET 

1877 



WILLIAM PENN 

AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE 

TH E PEN N CLUB 

OF 

PHILADELPHIA 

October 27, 1877 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-EIFTH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE 

LANDING AT UPLAND 

BY 

WAYNE MAC VEAGH 



PHILADELPHIA 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 7 05 JAYNE STREET 

1877 



r I sz. 



Souroe tiakaovit 



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ADDRESS 



.Gentlemen: 

The Executive Committee of the Penn Club tliought it not 
unbecoming to gather its friends together upon this anniver- 
sary of the landing of him whose name it bears upon the soil 
of the State lie founded; and their partiality has devolved 
upon me the agreeable duty of expressing the gratification the 
members of the Club feel at your presence, and the heartiness 
of the welcome thej' desire to proffer you. 

They are especially glad to receive the learned members of 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania-, and to avail themselves 
of this opportunity to bear their testimony to the inestimable 
value of the distinguished services that society has already 
rendered, and the services more distinguished, if possible, 
which it is destined to render in enlio-htenino; and elevatino- 
the patriotism of the citizens of the imperial Commonwealth, 
whose early history it has caused to be investigated with so 
much patience and illustrated with so great discernment. 

It is, indeed, no less an authority than my Lord Bacon, who, 
in "the true marshalling of the sovereign degrees of honor," 
assigns "the first place to the conditores imperioriim, founders 
of States and Commonwealths ;" and cultivated communities 
have always commemorated with pride the virtues of the 



heroic men who hiid the foundations of their strength and 
greatness. A[>art, however, from any patriotic interest in it 
natural to us, the story of American Colonization is one of 
the most interesting and attractive episodes in human history. 
It was an age of marvellous ambition and of marvellous 
achievement; and except those sunny years at Atliens during 
which the human spirit attained and preserved the serenest 
and completcst culture it has ever known, [lerhaps blood was 
never less sluggish, thought never less commonplace, lives 
never less monotonous than in the early days of the settlement 
of America. 

Great scientific discoveries had filled the minds of men with 
thirst for wider knowledge. Mechanical inventions of price- 
less value had awakened in them an eager desire to avail 
themselves of the advantages of those inventions. By the aid 
of movable types wise books could be cheaply printed. By 
the aid of the mariner's compass great shi[)S could be safely 
sailed. By the aid of gunpowder virgin lands could be rescued 
from savage tribes. The illustrious names of that illustrious 
time crowd upon our recollection, for their renown still fills 
the world, and their surpassing excellence still kindles the 
flame of a generous emulation in all the leading departments 
of virtuous human effort — in art, in adventure, in discovery 
of new lands, in philosophy, in poetry, in searching for the 
secrets of nature, in subjecting the forces of nature to the will 
of man, in heroism in war by sea and by land, in sacrifices for 
liberty of conscience. 

It cannot, therefore, do us harm to stand, as it were, a little 
while in the presence of any eminent man of that formative 
period, and by the contemplation of his spirit to quicken our 
own, as by coals of fire from oft' an altar. In Sir Thomas 



More's portrayal of tlie perfect State we are told that " they 
set up in the market-place the images of such men as had been 
bountiful benefactors to the Commonwealth for the perpetual 
memory of their good acts ; and also that the glory and renown 
of the ancestors might stir and provoke their posterity to 
virtue." This is an anniversary of the most momentous event 
in the eventful career of him who has been our most bountiful 
benefactor, and we may wisely, therefore, withdraw a few 
moments from the social enjoyments of the evening to look 
once more upon a likeness of our founder. It is trae that when 
he landed at Upland, he entered into possession of a Province, 
which had before attracted the attention of great statesmen, 
and had been selected by them as the theatre of a novel and 
lofty experiment in government ; for it was here that Gustavus 
Adolphiis hoped to secure a city of refuge for the oppressed, 
and the sagacious Oxenstiern hoped to realize his beneficent 
scheme of colonization; and it was here that Christina had 
founded a l^ew Sweden, whose simple-minded, pious, and 
frugal citizens purchased the lands they coveted and tilled 
them with their own hands, living in peace with all their 
neighbors; but, nevertheless, the coming of William Penn 
was the founding of Pennsylvania, and in spite of all abate- 
ment, though he 

was flawed 
For Adam, much more, Christ, 

yet he was eminently worthy of the greatness of his trust. 

He had inherited a distinguished name and a great oppor- 
tunity. His grandfather had been a captain in the English 
merchant service in the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth, 
when that service was perhaps the best school which ever ex- 
3 



6 

isted to render men alert, brave, self-reliant, and capable of 
confronting any peril with an equal mind. His father had 
been reared in the same school, and had developed, at a very- 
early age, remarkable capacity for naval warftire. To this 
capacit}^ he added a handsome presence, courtly manners, 
and such political virtue as was not incompatible with regard- 
ing his own advancement as the principal duty of his life. 
At twenty-one he was a captain in the English navy, at thirty- 
one he was Vice- Admiral of England, at thirty-four he was a 
member of Parliament, at forty-three he was captain com- 
mander under the Duke of York, and he died shortly after his 
retirement from tbe Naval Board, before he had attained fifty 
years of age. The rapiditj' of his promotion to great offices is 
very remarkable, when it is remembered that he served the 
Parliament, Charles I, the Lord Protector, and Charles II 
and continued to rise steadily, notwithstanding the civil war 
and the frequent changes of administration it produced. He 
was quite evidently a worldly-minded man, but he was also 
wise with the wisdom of the world, and by adding to his great 
services the favor of his sovereign, he laid the foundations of 
a noble house, needing only for its security that his son should 
follow in his footsteps, and with filial piety accept the wealth 
and rank and fame which were proffered him. 

The son had been born near the Tower of London while his 
father was sailing down the Thames to join Lord Warwick in 
the Irish Seas, and had passed his childhood with his mother, 
Margaret Jasper, of Rotterdam, at their country house at Wan- 
stead in Essex. lie was only eleven years of age when his 
father returned from the fruitless attack upon Hispaniola and 
was consigned to the Tower by Cromwell, but even at that early 
age he was profoundly impressed by his father's misfortune. 



When about sixteen years of age lie was sent to Oxford, and 
was matriculated as a gentleman commoner at Christ Church. 
At that time tlie world certainly appeared to be opening before 
his youthful vision in undimmed radiance and beauty. The 
son of a great admiral, who was also a great favorite of the 
King and of his royal brother, he entered upon his academical 
career under the most brilliant auspices. Fond of studj' and 
athletic sports, a diligent reader and a good boatman, he easily 
won his way to the esteem of his teachers and the regard of 
his fellows, and for a time he satisfied all expectations; but 
for students of high intelligence and sensitive conscience, 
venerable and beautiful Oxford, " spreading her gardens to the 
moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchant- 
ments of the Middle Age," possesses a charm which may be a 
danger. Walking in the spacious meadows of his college, or 
meditating beneath her noble elms, William Penn became pos- 
sessed by the genius of the place, for the chief university of 
the world has always been " the home of lost causes, and for- 
saken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties." 
It was while under the influence of this spirit that he was 
attracted by the doctrines of George Fox, and for his stubborn 
loyalty to what he was then pleased to call his convictions he 
was tinally expelled. 

To withdraw him as much as possible from the thoughts 
upon which he was at that time intent, his father sent him to 
the Continent, and at Paris he was presented at the court of 
the Grand Monarch and heartily welcomed. He entered with 
becoming spirit into the enjoyments of the French Capital, 
and proved his title to its citizenship by fighting a duel in its 
streets. Thence he went to the famous College of Saumur, 
where he finished those liberal studies which made him not 



only un accomplished linguist, but a man of most varied and 
generous t;ulture. lie afterwards travelled through France and 
Italy, and returned to England to dance attendance at White- 
hall for a brief period, and to share in the perils of a naval 
engagement on board the flag-ship of his father. He after- 
wards devoted some attention to the law as a student at Lin- 
coln's Inn, but he soon joined the staff" of the Duke of Ormond, 
then Viceroy of Ireland. While acting in this capacity he 
saw some military service, and apparently contracted a strong 
desire to devote himself to the career of a soldier. Indeed, he 
earnestly and repeatedly sought his father's permission to enter 
the British armj^, but this permission was steadily refused. 

It was at this interesting period of his life that the authentic 
portrait of him now in possession of our Historical Society was 
painted — a portrait which dispels many of the mistaken opin- 
ions of his person and his character generally entertained. 
It presents him to us, clad in armor, of frank countenance, 
and features delicate and beautiful but resolute, with his hair 
" long and parted in the centre of his forehead" — " falling over 
his shoulders in massive natural ringlets." It bears the date of 
his twenty-second birthday, and the martial motto, Pax qucei'i- 
iur bello. 

It is to William Peun, as presented by this portrait, that I 
especially desire to attract your attention this evening, to 
William Penn as an accomplished cavalier, a ripe scholar, a 
brave soldier, and in the full glow of liis youthful beauty — the 
product of the quiet years of motherly companionship at Wan- 
stead, of the restless, aspiring, combative years at Christ 
Church, of the gay society of Paris, of the studious vigils at 
Saumur, of Italian air and sky, of the depraved court at 
Whitehall, of the chambers of Lincoln's Inn, of the vice-regal 



staft' at Dublin, of the joy of battle on tlie deck beside liis 
father in the Channel, or joining as a volunteer in the attack 
at Carrickfergus. 

This portrait fitly represents him in mail, for his life thence- 
forward was one long battle, relieved only by the brief repose 
of his courtship and his honeymoon in the attractive and his- 
toric circle in which he found his wife, a circle which included 
Isaac Pennington, Thomas Ellwood, and John Milton. It is 
not my purpose, as it is not my privilege, to detain you 
upon this occasion with any elaborate statement of his subse- 
quent life or any elaborate estimate of his character. Ample 
opportunity will be afforded in the recurrence of this anniver- 
sary and the celebration of it, for the diligent liistorical stu- 
dents who honor us with their presence to-night to arrange 
the details of that life in lucid order, and to praise that charac- 
ter with discriminating eulogy. Their main outlines only con- 
cern us now, but those outlines are full of instruction and of 
interest for us all. 

We know, and we are glad to know, that his desire to be 
useful to his fellow-men could not exhaust itself even by 
preaching the Gospel, as he understood it, in season and out 
of season, but that to this great labor of love he added other 
like labors scarcely less great. He defended the rights of con- 
science. He defended the liberties of Englishmen. He 
defended the privileges of jurymen. His first plea for tolera- 
tion w^as in behalf of the sect, with which he had the least 
sympath}'. In obedience to his convictions of the truth of the 
creed he professed he endured the anger of his father, the loss 
of a peerage, separation from home, opprobrium and con- 
tumely from men, and frequent and prolonged imprisonment. 
While his spirit was being purified by suffering, his mind was 
3 



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being widened by bioli converse witb John Locke and Alger- 
non Sidney ; and at last, when all obstacles to the trial of the 
experiment of his principles of government upon a virgin soil 
were overcome, he could truthfully exclaim, as he received the 
royal charter for his Province: " Grod hath given it to me in 
the face of the world. ... He will bless and make it the 
seed of a nation." 

It was, therefore, very precious freight which the good ship 
Welcome brought to these shores the day whose anniversary 
we celebrate, for it carried the sublime religious and political 
principles of William Penn and the illimitable influences of 
his wise and beneficent government, whose corner-stone was 
civic peace, born of justice, and whose capstone was religious 
liberty, born of toleration. 

There was doubtless much in his life which w^ns inconsistent 
with the highest standards of the religion he professed, but 
this inconsistency he shared with every man wlio professes the 
Christian faith, and the contradictions in his career are easily 
reconciled in the light of his youth and early manhood, but 
his virtue and his glory are his alone; for, in the seven- 
teenth century, he discovered and proclaimed the political 
utility of liberty, of justice, of peace, of a free press, and a 
liberal system of education — the principles upon which rest 
the blessings of the present, and the hopes of the future of the 
human race. 

Whenever, therefore, we are pained with the perusal of the 
sad record of his later years, the ingratitude he experienced, 
the embarrassments he suffered, the injustice he endured, as 
we follow his declining steps to the undistinguished grave 
where he lies buried, we may see, as in retrospect, the long 
pathway by which he travelled thither, and learn the secret 



11 

of the divine inspiration by which the young soKHlt at its 
beginning was transformed before its close into an immortal 
benefactor of mankind. 

Friend of liberty, friend of justice, friend of peace, apostle 
of God, 

Live and take comfort! Thou hast left behind 

Powers which will work for thee 

Thou hast great allies ; 

Thy friends are exultations, agonies, and love, 
And man's unconquerable mind. 



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